Aerospace Diary

Neelam Mathews Jan 12, 2012 Major U.S. carriers are adding surcharges to flights following the EU-ETS.  Around $3 surcharge each way on fares purchased between the US and Europe is being added. While the ETS has been opposed by India, US and China, EU has been clear it will not pull out.  According to a report, industry watchers have said airfares between the U.S. and Europe could rise by $90 as carriers look to pass along the expense to passengers.

Neelam Mathews Sept 1, 2011 The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has invited non-EU countries on Sept 28-29 to discuss EU’s Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) that will impose a mandatory tax on all airlines flying over or to EU countries, According to DGCA Dr Nasim Zaidi, 28 countries are being invited. Impact on air carriers and passengers will be substantial. As a result of the ETS, an additional $65 will be added to a ticket on the Delhi-London-Delhi sector. “This is tantamount to a trade war under the garb of environment,” says an airline official. While the U.S has protested formally in June to the EU and India is said to be watching the Congress Bill titled EU-ETS prohibition Act 2011 that needs to be cleared in the House of Representatives and then go through numerous stages before becoming an Act that will prohibit U.S carriers from giving taxes to foreign entities, there is concern that time is too short as the ETS comes into being on Jan 1, 2012. The fact rem...

Neelam Mathews Time: 10:35pm IST May 8, 2011 The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines is looking at the possibility of widening its present membership base to include India, Andrew Herdman, Director General told Aerospace Diary. Presently, its membership is open to scheduled international airlines based within the time zones between GMT+7 and GMT+12. This does not envelop India and its carriers. While Indian carriers are presently focused mainly on domestic issues through the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), Herdman says with more carriers flying abroad, many issues will be common. “We do invite many Indian carriers to our events,” he adds. AAPA is run as a non-profit association, fully funded through annual membership subscriptions, based on an agreed formula which reflects the relative sizes of member airlines in terms of their regional traffic volumes. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, it is the trade association of major scheduled international airlines based in the Asia-Pa...

India’s carriers are becoming increasingly interested in green technology Asian Airlines & Airports Neelam Mathews April 3, 2011 Time filed- 8.05PM IST I mpending regulations on envi­ronment in the offing such as Eu­ropean Union Emissions Trading Scheme are prompting Indian car­riers to start looking at green tech­nologies.  Budget carrier IndiGo and King­fisher Airlines are looking at doing pilot flights with green fuel once the government certification is granted.  “We have support from Airbus and Pratt & Whitney and once the aviation authority (in India) gives us a green signal, they could fly within months,” says James E. Rekoske, Vice President, Renewable Energy and Chemicals, UOP, Honeywell Special­ity Materials to AAA. UOP was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop economically vi­able technology to stabilize pyrolysis oil from second generation biomass feedstocks for use as a renewable fuel source. Biomass pyrolysis ...

March 17, 2011 Neelam Mathews NEW DELHI- As the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) deadline for 2012 approaches, UK companies are offering India products and services related to the trading of emission reduction credits  and investing in greenhouse gas abatement projects. As of 2012, all flights arriving at or departing from airports within the EU will be subject to the ETS. This means that by 2020 the CO 2 emissions of those flights are to be reduced by at least 20% of their 1990 levels. Airlines around the world are grappling to come to terms with this new challenge. “We are concerned about the ETS. This concern is felt not just by India but by the entire block of developing countries. We would like to be guided by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC )…” said Nasim Zaidi, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation at the UK-India Aviation Meet held here. “We would like to be guided by a global approach of ICAO,” added Zaidi. H...